Falling through
by WoodenRed
Summary: A one shot about Sirius Black's last thoughts just as he's falling through the veil.


**DISCLAIMER - I DON'T OWN ANYTHING.**

_Author's Note - Please check out my fic - How I, Lily Evans, fell in love.. if you are a fan of the James and Lily universe._

**Falling Through**

One of my earliest childhood memories is of Trixie's beheading. I was barely five years old at that time. Regulus was three. It happened two days before Christmas.

Most wizards, especially the _Purebloods_ don't believe in God. I think that's because they think of themselves as God. Christmas was merely an excuse to throw lavish parties and show off their wealth. My family had made a tradition of this.

The day before Trixie's beheading, I was playing with my toy broomstick outside on our backyard. I noticed two little girls sitting with their mother in the house next door. They had a bowl of popcorn in front of them and they were stringing the popcorn. I sat watching them for hours seeing something that I did not recognize. I think what I saw was Christmas as it should be celebrated. After watching them for nearly an hour, I figured out that they intended to put up the string of popcorn on their Christmas tree. Utterly fascinated by the idea and desperately craving the kind of spirit I saw in the mother and her two young daughters as they strung their popcorn, I nagged Trixie to allow me to do the same. She loved me so she gave in finally. Trixie, Regulus and I spent two glorious hours stringing popcorn in the attic that evening. She said we could put it up for an hour.

My mother went ballistic when she saw the popcorn hanging on her _beautiful _tree. She ordered that Trixie would be beheaded for letting something so _Muggle_ happen in the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. My mother beheaded Trixie herself while Regulus and I watched on. Kreacher saw it all happen too. Trixie was his mother. He was made to clean the knife that my mother had used to behead his mother later that night.

That was the kind of _family_ I grew up in.

The first time I held Harry in my arms (after twenty minutes of convincing Lily that I won't drop him), I swore to myself that he would grow up in a different kind of family. He would never know the feeling of being responsible for someone else's death and he would never have to watch someone die.

The biggest regret of my life has been that I couldn't live up to any of those promises. Even in death I feel the same regret.

Another thing I regret is that the last thing I saw before I fell into the veil, is my dear cousin Bellatrix' triumphant face. I think I hated her the most in my entire family. Azkaban had barely changed her. I think that was something we Blacks had in common. When I saw her picture in the Prophet listing her as one of the escapees from Azkaban I thought she looked exactly like she had in the Black family portrait my mother had painted one summer. It's funny to think how all of us in that portrait had turned out. Me, Regulus, Narcissa, Andromeda and Bellatrix.

I also heard Harry cry out for me.

I am sad to leave him behind. The boy is too proud for his own good. He never turns to anyone for help. Yet I think he liked to come to me. That he liked to turn to me for help. He probably thought I was the only one he had the right to ask. I was sad that I had robbed him of his right again.

But he has found good friends to lean on. I think he gets that from his father. I only hope he's less blind than his father when it comes to trusting his friends.

He has also found a surrogate family in the Weasleys and for that I will be forever grateful. They were the kind of family I always wanted. I think Harry feels that way too. I could never thank Molly enough for taking Harry in.

She always accused me of mistaking Harry for his father. How could I not when he was the spitting image of James. Though there was so much of Lily in him too. He was the perfect combination of the two of them. I will never understand how Snape could ever detest Harry when there was so much of Lily in him. True love isn't like that. Though I wouldn't really know.

At first I admit I only thought of Harry as Lily and James' son. It was hard to think of the little happy bundle I had seen James play with as the nearly-a-man-now boy involved in a life or death battle all time. There were times when I thought that James and Lily had come back to me. Like the time I saw him play Quidditch. Only James' son could fly like that. Or the time when he asked me to spare Pettigrew and hand him over to the authorities. Only Lily's son could've asked me to do that.

But as I got to know him better, it was hard not to love him for just who he was. I don't think he realizes the effect he has on people. The instant loyalty and protectiveness people feel when they are around him. I'm not surprised that there are five people here today willing to jeopardize their lives on a fool's errand just because he said he wanted to go. I hope to god those kids are safe.

A part of me wishes that Harry would mourn for me. I know it is selfish to wish more pain on the boy than he already has to deal with but I can't help it. Harry and Remus. I could think of only two people who would actually feel my loss. It is a terrible feeling, even worse than death, to know that your death would go unnoticed and unmourned. I had no family left, my dearest friends had died before me and I had no kids of my own. And Harry would move on. He had other friends he could count on. Remus would also find someone. I had seen him with Dora.

But I was going to a place where I would be wanted. While I was alive, even after James and Lily's death, I had never wondered about heaven and hell. I was too consumed by revenge and later by concern for Harry to wonder about these things. But something told me I was going there now. It may not be heaven but it would be close. I was going back to James and Lily. I was sure of it.

Yet the first person I saw when I reached heaven was neither Lily nor James.

Instead, I saw Trixie with a bowl of popcorn in her hands. Regulus was sitting next to her.

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